


Rubato

by inkpink



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Con Air, Gen, God Tier Wordplay, What's the Opposite of Hero Worship?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 02:29:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6546976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkpink/pseuds/inkpink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ru·ba·to<br/>/ro͞oˈbätō/<br/>noun<br/>The temporary disregarding of strict tempo to allow an expressive quickening or slackening, usually without altering the overall pace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rubato

There is no Time. There is no Light. Only darkness and vast, empty Space.

John feels a little guilty when he asks Jade to teleport him here just so he can wrap the remains of his bedsheets around him and stare into the black. Gazing out his window makes him feel like a king surveying a lost battle. An Heir with a wrecked inheritance.

Chill wind whistles a victory tune through his bedroom’s shattered windowpanes despite this. He’d match it if he could. John’s Land is the most beautiful place he’s ever seen, the perfect juxtaposition of the suburban neighborhood he grew up in. The ground seems to almost breathe, and glowing mushrooms form spotlights on the dark, rocky hills. He’s thought of eating one before, but curiosity killed the cat and one ghostly Jaspersprite is enough for him, thanks very much.

Besides, he’s not that kind of protagonist.

LoWaS glows softly in spite of the carnage on its surface. The planet is unaware of its minute state. Lemondrop salamanders scurry around the remains of his front yard. The splut of oil and and the soft pat of their feet is all that remains to be heard. In short, it is deliciously silent.

He’s been talking to himself more lately - filling up the silence. He mutters about old yearbooks or pesterlogs or posters covered in humiliating crayon. It reminds him of when his dad would go out for hours and he’d have the house all to himself. John would turn up Dave’s tracks loud enough to shake the walls and snicker through jokes too ridiculous to say aloud.

He’s home alone forever now.

Music, though. Music might be good.

He makes his way downstairs into the study, being careful to avoid the rubble. All grist was collected from this place ages ago. There’s little left to this house but the memories it brings back. They are one and the same, John and his childhood home. Both merely shells of happier times.

From the look of it, they’re both doing the same terrible job of hiding it. Paint peels from the shutters and bags lounge beneath John’s baby blues. The roof and his smile sag at the same sad, obtuse angle.

The piano, the piano, he needs to get his fingers on the keys before these emotions get the better of him and he can't play at all. He slides into the worn wooden seat and just.

_Breathes._

This is where his aspect is nearest.

John dips into Moonlight Sonata, and his dad’s face is clearer behind his eyes than it has been in months. That’s who the piano makes him think of first. White shirt ironed and smelling comfortingly of icing and aftershave. Smile broad. Hat always in place. John half expects to hear a knock at the study’s door and be offered a plate of Funfetti.

His dad's dead now, of course, a death that he would come to mark as the start of many.

Who's he kidding, playing the piano always makes things worse. Music is good for him the way this game was good for their paradox foursome. Inevitable, yet excruciating.

He lines up notes and calls them his friends: a trill of minor for Rose, a skip up an octave for Jade. He slams out a few rough melodies for Dave. It's just a series of arpeggios over and over and _over_ again, but it helps. A little.

The nostalgic bite is addicting regardless, and in moods like these, he can scarcely keep his fingers off the keys.

He doesn't even know what he's doing by the time his fingers wander across Vriska. He might be playing Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star. Anything so long as he doesn't have to stop.

He used to stare down at these dumb blue pajamas and think that because he didn't choose to die, he didn't sacrifice himself like Rose and Dave, he’d just taken charge of his friends and done what seemed right at the time, he didn’t deserve the title of hero. Hero of Breath, golden dreamer on Prospit, Boy Skylark with a penchant for mischief.

A year ago, heroes stopped deaths. Heroes saved damsels before they could roll doubles and shed blood. Heroes were **brave.** John was doubtful that he could ever be counted among them.

Rewatching Con Air inspired something more than a sour displeasure in John this time. It made him realize that while he’s just a guy, he’s definitely a hero. Nic Cage is a hero. Dave and Rose are heroes, Jade is a hero, John is one big heroic hero. It doesn't mean anything.

Heroes are just people. John saved the four of them when he launched that copy and John lead the team, and John died, and boy, wasn't all that brave of him?

The truth is that John couldn't save half the people who mattered, and this isn't victory that he’s played their team into the hands of. Yeah, he came back to life, but he came back to a war that’s not worth fighting.

If _he’s_ a hero, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.

John plays a little while longer. The notes shift to a minuet. It's elegant. Stable. If he could pop these notes like pills, they might put him back together again.

Mostly, John wishes he could have laughed more and fought less. Savored being a little

boy with a hammer made of cheat codes for as long as he could.

He fades into sound and when he returns, of all things, he is playing the Batman theme. Oh, Dave would _love_ this. It's not even ironic, not that John had a handle on any of that stuff. Maybe that was part of the irony, being so good you didn't even know what you were doing. He wonders if he'll ever have a chance to show Dave all he's learned.

John bites back a sob and his measured chords jump to anxious harmonies.

This tribute isn't anywhere close to doing them justice, but John can't find it in him to stop. They deserve symphonies, symphonies impossible to play. The lost world deserves an orchestra.

He himself receives little more than swelling silence, buzzing and beautiful in his ears. John’s a hero, alright, but he’s still deciding whether that’s good or bad.

He is going to go crazy on this ship. There’s too much Space to Breathe, and he hates having to ask Jade for little slices of privacy. It’s like prison. It’s like Purgatory. Rose would say it’s like growing up.

He’s always wondered how she knows things like that. John thinks it must have to do with a lot more than being a Seer.

The door creaks open. _Please don't let it be Jade, I can't see her right now, I can't keep making stilted conversation and-_

John is tired and sick of his playmates, and he wants a long nap with no Light but Rose at the end.

His dynamics flame.

It's Casey. She bubbles in fear at his abuse of the keys. Oh, no. He doesn't want to scare the last thing on this ship that doesn't tiptoe around him or set creamsicle traps to trip him up. John leaves the keys and stretches his fingers out to Casey's shaking form. She obliges.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, hand cramping against her slick yellow skin. Casey's wide doll eyes flick up at him.

"Uh, John?" Oh, great. She always knows exactly where he is. This time, Jade's found him in an even worse state than before: crying to a salamander. "Are you okay?"

Her white dog ears are perked in a way that would be endearing if he wasn't so pissed about them. Jade gets her life saved and winds up semi-omniscient - John gets stabbed and gains a new pair of pajamas.

He lets out of a gust of breath he didn't realize he was holding. As soon as it's gone, another begins to brew, stormy, in its place.

“I’m…”

  
_John is all hot air._


End file.
